Enhancement of nerve bundles in white matter using MR diffusion tensor maps

We propose a method for detecting nerve fiber bundles in white matter using diffusion tensor maps and apply the method to practical data. We can calculate diffusion tensor maps by combining several diffusion weighted images (DWI) that correspond to the mobility of water protons in 3D spaces. The intensity of DWI depends on the respective orientation of fiber bundles and the gradient direction at each different imaging slice. Specifically in white matter, we see a wide variation in diffusion. There are still qualitative analyses about DWI and few quantitative analyses about diffusion tensor maps. This report is essentially dedicated to make structural brain maps about white matter fiber bundles and suggest the usefulness for analyses of brain function.